London’s theatres are set for a decade of growth following record advanced sales for 2013. This comes after they “cleared the hurdle” of the Olympics, and Boris’ voice on the tube, to post a surprise boost in audiences and returns last year.

“I'd expected a welcome like the Prodigal Son's,” confesses Jan, the man who – in Camus' 1944 play Cross Purpose – returns home after twenty years of making his fortune abroad. But there's no sniff of a fatted calf for him in this pointedly pitiless inversion of the parable.